Automatic Grid Generation Allows Faster Analysis Of Coal Mines

MULSIM/NL and La Model are displacement-discontinuity programs which have been used quite successfully in the past to provide detailed structural models of various single and multiple-seam mining situations. However, both of these programs required fairly complex details of the mine plan and topography to be manually input into the program, often taking several days of work. Recently, automatic mine and topographic grid generation capabilities have been added to the MULSIM/NL and La Model programs, reducing the input time requirements from days to hours. This paper discusses the algorithms used for the automatic grid generation and demonstrates the utility of the new capabilities with a case study.